re:mote voices: literature

Title: Lizard
Author: Banana Yoshimoto
Publisher: Faber and Faber

I bought two Banana Yoshimoto books at once, part of a special offer. I read Kitchen already, with mixed feelings in the end. Completing Lizard hasn't particularly resolved those issues - her work has strengths and weaknesses and I can't decide how they cancel out.

The Japanese author seems to specialise in novellas and short stories to judge from these two volumes. Where Kitchen was two novellas (technically two related stories plus a third unrelated), Lizard is 6 short stories which from the author's notes are intended to explore the big things in life - love, death, sex, spirituality and the like. Reading the stories it is clear that some attempt has been made in this direction, with some of those being natural and some being heavy handed.

Having finished the book I was reading before at lunchtime I start Lizard on the train on the way home from work. The first story is Newlyweds, which takes place on a train and is about a man on his way home from work. Synchronously I finish the story as the train pulls into the stop and I'm standing at the carriage doors, the story ends as the characters train pulls into the station and he is standing at the doors. This provided something of an extra resonance to this piece, which was curious. The story itself is about a man who is on his way home, having had a few drinks, and starts thinking about his new wife and their life together. For some reason he decides not to get off at his stop, to just keep going. Which triggers the event which happens next, a curious stranger sits down beside him even though there is plenty of room in the carriage. The stranger is at first a homeless man, but then he transforms into a beautiful woman, who starts to ask him why he didn't get off at his stop and what he is thinking. From here we have the curious notion of this spirit who goes round on the Tokyo trains observing the lives and details of the passengers. With that it is interesting that the story was originally serialised on the trains in Tokyo.

The title story Lizard is next and initially seems to be a straightforward relationship story. The narrator is a man who has come across this woman at the gym with a lizard tattoo on her thigh. He asks her out eventually and they start dating. But the focus of the story turns as we learn how both characters have suffered extreme trauma as children and as adults he is a doctor who helps traumatized people and she has opened a practice where she heals people with her hands. With this we have a new perception of how theirs is a relationship of dependency, but also of a fragility and specialness that really brings them together. The third piece is called Helix and gets more into Banana's ambiguous territory where I can't decide what I make of it. For the third story in a row we have a male narrator and at the core the nature of his relationship with his girlfriend. The feeling is that he isn't entirely happy with the way things are going. Having been drinking the night before he feels negative, doesn't want to get up, but still when she phones to make arrangements he agrees to meet her. Where they meet is in a cafe that has closed, so they are sitting in this empty place in the dark and with that Banana seems to be trying to convey everything that needs to be said about their relationship. How the story ends from there seems entirely random, and while random events do happen the way it is handled is curious. A big deal seems to be made about this event to some degree and yet it almost becomes bland through the filter of these characters.

The next story is Dreaming of Kimchee, the first here to have a female narrator. Her monologue pretty much concerns itself with how she reads magazines in her spare time and how they always have articles about women having affairs with married men. As this goes on the narrator reveals how in fact she is having an affair with a married man, then how he has become divorced and the two of them are now married. So I guess its a happy ending, though like Helix there is something extra at the end to make more of the situation, but again the result is not particularly much of anything. From here it is clear that the book is in two halves, the first three stories have male narrators while the second three have female. As such Blood and Water is the story of a girl raised in a kind of religious commune, which she has left when she is old enough - heading to Tokyo in an attempt to find her true self. Which she does with the help of an artist that she meets. This piece is more interesting than the previous two, having a wider scope and allowing more of the world to creep in - from the story of how her parents joined the commune, through her meeting with her boyfriend, to how she gets on with her parents now.

The final story is A Strange Tale from Down by the River, where the narrator explains how she is changed from her wild youth to now where she is getting ready to get married. As a young woman she was involved in extreme sex, she threw herself into it and as far as the others she was involved with she had a unique vitality and took a special delight in it all. However with the meeting of her husband to be she has gained a calm and no longer feels that need. Through the course of the story we experience her reflections, the news of her marriage bringing up people from the past - recounting the best and worst aspects of her previous life style. At the same time there is the contrast of the idea that she is marrying above her station, a some how more mundane and old fashioned idea, especially held against her sex life.

At times the narratives feel sparse, without a doubt being short pieces, 6 stories in under 180 pages doesn't seem to be much of a book. With this some of the stories leave me with a detached feeling, doing little for me. Yet on the whole Banana has a certain way that seems to work and provides enough of interest throughout that along with some of the quirks, provides her work with a level of appeal.

RVWR: PTR
November 2002